''We're doing everything we can to find more places to sell products and increase farmer income. ... Something like that, to me, seems too good a thing to pass up,'' Combest, a Lubbock Republican who chairs the House Agriculture Committee, said in an telephone interview.

The highly contentious PNTR measure, which is drawing fire from House members on both sides of the aisle, would end 20 years of annual congressional votes on China's trade status and grant Beijing the same permanent low-tariff access to U.S. markets that nearly every other nation in the world already enjoys.

Combest feels that agriculture has ''some phenomenal opportunity to have some successes under this, with billions of dollars in increased exports,'' he said of the bill, which is being considered at the same time that China's proposed membership in the World Trade Organization is being debated.

He's concerned that failure to pass the PNTR legislation would give other trading nations the advantage of doing business with China's 1.3 billion citizens.

Exports currently account for 30 percent of U.S. farm cash receipts, and nearly 40 percent of all agricultural production is exported. U.S. agricultural exports to China amounted to $2.2 billon last year, with a $1.4 billion surplus, although some are estimating that the level of sales to the Chinese could increase by as much as $2 billion annually by 2005 if it receives PNTR status.

''One of the arguments currently being made against PNTR for China is the idea that China, with its 1.3 billon citizens and only 7 percent of the world's arable land, doesn't need U.S. agricultural products,'' said U.S. Rep. Charles Stenholm, D-Stamford, the HAC's ranking minority member.

''USDA's Economic Research Service has indicated that China will continue to be a major market for U.S. agricultural products. In fact, the ERA has concluded that China's implementation of its WTO obligations between 2000 and 2004 will add $1.7 billion to the bottom line for U.S. farmers and ranchers in 2005.''

Combest declined to speculate on the number of votes the bill will receive next week, adding that the ''only strong opposition'' has come from organized labor.

U.S. Rep. Robert Matsui, D-Calif., the Clinton administration's point man for the bill among Democrats, was quoted Wednesday as predicting that about 70 members of his party are expected to vote for the bill, while Republican number crunchers are saying that about 140 Republicans will vote in favor. A total of 218 affirmative votes are needed for passage.

John Sweeney, AFL-CIO president, said that with the bill the U.S. ''gives up, permanently and unconditionally, its ability to use economic leverage to insist that China stop its horrifying human rights abuses.''

Another detractor, U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said Beijing ''threatens world peace by flagrantly proliferating weapons of mass destruction.''

''Different people are speaking against it for whatever reason, and in their mind they've made their decision. Most of the things I have heard in a lot of instances I don't think are having any impact,'' said Combest. ''I don't see how it helps human rights if we don't sell West Texas cotton to them.''

Under terms of the bill, Chinese tariffs would be reduced for beef, pork, wheat and other commodities. And improved access would be provided for cotton, corn, rice and soybeans through reform of the Chinese tariff-rate quota system.

The Chinese have also agreed to eliminate export subsidies and to reduce trade distorting domestic subsidies upon accession to the WTO. In the WTO talks, the 15-nation European Union is the largest of seven WTO members that have yet to sign off on Beijing's accession to the Geneva-based body that makes world trade rules.